Tool to put text on desktop wallpaper

I'd like to put a list of keyboard shortcuts I want to learn on my desktop wallpaper so I can show and hide it quickly by pressing Win+D.

I'll want to be changing the list quite frequently as I remove ones that I've learnt and add new ones, so I don't want something that takes too long to make changes.

What tools are there to do this?

Followup: For the original use-case, shortcuts I now use a data:text/html,<html>... bookmark that chrome will sync between my home and work computers. However I've taken to creating "Motivational Posters" on my desktop background and I would still like a solution other than BgInfo as I find it's font rendering jaggy/pixelated . (If I do get BgInfo to render better I could make the "posters" change randomly by Scripting BGInfo For Random Wallpaper).

For those interested in the keyboard shortcut bookmarks here is an example. Put this in a bookmark:

data:text/html,<title>Keyboard Shortcuts</title><style>kbd {border: 1px solid lightgrey; padding: 2px;background-color: #FDF4DC; }</style><h1>Keyboard Shortcuts</h1><dl><dt>Copy</dt><dd><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Ins</kbd></dd><dt>Paste</dt><dd><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>Ins</kbd></dd><dt>Cut</dt><dd><kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>Del</kbd><dt>Erase input</dt><dd><kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>End</kbd></dd><dt>Tab Word</dt><dd><kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>&larr;</kbd>/<kbd>&rarr;</kbd></dd><pre>commands list:%0ACMD1%0ACMD2</pre>

Sam Hasler

Posted 2010-08-20T10:02:01.353

Reputation: 170

1@nhinkle It's not "hardware shopping recommendations". What's the problem? – Sam Hasler – 2014-11-04T15:30:28.153

Somone chose the wrong close reason. It should have been "Questions seeking product, service, or learning material recommendations are off-topic...". The new site http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ is now a better fit ...

– DavidPostill – 2014-11-04T16:43:58.527

I want one for mac, thinking of asking this question yesterday. Fancy adding mac os x to the tags and question? :p – danixd – 2010-08-20T10:12:08.933

@danixd: try GeekTool http://lifehacker.com/software/top/download-of-the-day--geektool-185802.php

– Sam Hasler – 2010-08-20T10:34:19.963

Answers

A very useful and simple to use tool is BgInfo: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx

You can either edit the text area directly through BgInfo, or you can have it read the contents from a locally stored text file.

Note: if you use the text file option, you'll need some sort of scheduled task to automate picking up any changes to the document

Brendan Bullen

Posted 2010-08-20T10:02:01.353

Reputation: 286

The thing that bugs me about BgInfo is that the fonts aren't rendered with antialiasing/cleartype and I can see a lot of pixels on curved letters. – Sam Hasler – 2014-10-29T12:06:58.733

@SamHasler I totally agree. BGInfo seems to have hit a wall as far as development goes. Since there have been no updates for a while (and no indication of any upcoming in the forum) I wouldn't expect any change to this issue. Sadly I don't use anything like this any more so I don't know of a better alternative. – Brendan Bullen – 2014-10-29T14:30:12.260

Makes a mess of the wallpapers on 7 & 8 – Lord Loh. – 2013-09-19T18:21:45.870

You're looking for http://rainmeter.net/RainCMS/ -- it lets you display text files on your desktop.

tunack

Posted 2010-08-20T10:02:01.353

Reputation: 61

seems a bit overkill. Does it stay up when minimising windows with Win+D though? – Sam Hasler – 2010-08-20T12:27:16.540

I have used a BAT script with grep for windows (separate download) to generate a text file that "whoami" would display and gotten the information that I needed to display.

http://www.kewlit.com/whoami/

I don't remember which version I used but BgInfo may be a better solution if it allows scripting or including text files.

Lars Nordin

Posted 2010-08-20T10:02:01.353

Reputation: 168